(Minghui.org) Like many people from rural areas, I was eager to make money after I graduated from college. I worked very hard, made good money, bought a house and a car, and got married. I went from being a poor young man from the countryside to a millionaire within four years.
But I was not content, always wanting more things and more wealth. I often ate, drank, and spent time with customers until the early hours, and I found that kind of life quite enjoyable.
I enjoyed socializing because I felt I was leading an upper-class life. However, as soon as I got home and sat down, a sense of emptiness and fear hit me. I often asked myself if that was what I wanted from life, and whether or not the life I was living was my ultimate goal. In fact, I knew the answer to these questions, but I didn't want, or dare, to face it.
Remembering the Preciousness of Practicing Falun Dafa
I practiced Falun Dafa while I was in high school. That wonderful period of time was so perfect that the memory of it still moves me to tears. Many teachers and classmates were practicing Falun Dafa, too.
Through studying the Fa, I had come to understand that the purpose of life is to cultivate and improve oneself. I also came to realize that one should be a good person and let go of desires and attachments in order to become a better person.
Most importantly, Falun Dafa taught me to follow the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. Therefore, in the northeastern countryside, factories preferred to hire Falun Dafa practitioners because everyone knew they were good people.
Every dawn and dusk, we did the exercises together. There were so many of us, from schoolteachers to students, common folks to government officials, and kids to people in their 90s. The strong energy field and wonderful feelings are difficult to describe.
Onset of the Persecution
When I graduated from high school in July 1999, former head of the communist regime Jiang Zemin launched the persecution of Falun Dafa.
The government was worried that practitioners would get political, but their worry was groundless and unnecessary because we were not interested in seizing political power.
Outside the county government building on July 20, 1999, I saw a police officer grab the hair of a petite female practitioner and drag her away. I saw a police officer tear off a female practitioners' clothes and another one hit a male practitioner with an electric baton.
Yet the practitioners remained calm and peaceful, and no one fought back when being hit or sworn at.
A Different Lifestyle after Giving Up Dafa
This sudden change terrified me. When I entered college, I did not tell anyone that I had practiced Falun Dafa. Because I stopped studying the Fa, I distanced myself from the Fa further and further, and I gradually stopped regarding myself as a practitioner.
Other practitioners were illegally sentenced to forced labor or prison, had their legs broken, or were tortured to death. In time, the way the persecution was carried out changed, from happening openly to being secretive, and it even included harvesting organs from living practitioners.
Fear kept me from thinking about Dafa, which had once touched my life so profoundly. I became a completely everyday person in college. I was into wine and cigarettes, and I fell in love. After graduation, marriage and a career came easily. Indulging in fame and personal profits became the norm in my life.
However, something deep in my heart warned me: “You cannot live like this.” Deep down, I wanted to be a good person. I wanted to improve. I wanted to cultivate.
Returning to My Faith
A year after I opened my own company, I felt I was able to take control of my own future. But it was also after several tests of loss and gain that a strong feeling rose up in me: “Master never gave up on me. Master has been looking after me and looking forward to my return!”
So I started reading Dafa books and listening to Master's lectures again. I quit smoking and drinking, and I stopped staying out all night. I focused on one thought, a thought that was 15 years late: “I will practice cultivation!”
I ran into all kinds of interference as soon as I returned to cultivation. My attachment to lust and desire was very strong, especially when I first resumed cultivation. I could feel dirty thoughts popping into my mind constantly. Those thoughts were not as simple as an appreciation of beauty; they were completely evil thoughts that surfaced uncontrollably.
I tried to reject them, but when that didn't work, I asked Master in my heart for help. After some time, a lot of bad substances were removed from inside and around my body. The interference of lust and desire was substantially reduced.
I was used to the drinking culture with customers and friends. When I told everyone that I was going to quit drinking, many asked me how I could still socialize if I did not drink.
I thought, “If the sales are dependent on my drinking and entertaining you, then I'd rather lose the sales. If you refuse to be my friend just because I don't drink or entertain you, then I'd rather lose such a friend.”
Once people realized that I was sincere, they admired my perseverance and that I lived up to my words.
Another interference was the temptation of profit. With the increasing difficulties in my industry, many companies had been trying everything possible to make money, even cheating. I refused to cut corners or substitute with cheap products, however, and I demanded that my employees do the same.
Even though my company remained small, we had a very good reputation. Many of our peers regarded our team as decent and dependable.
I know why our team is able to put kindness and goodness first: It is because all our team members know Falun Dafa is good and they remember what Master said: “...you should trade fairly and maintain a righteous mind.” (Zhuan Falun)
